Roy sighed. He didn’t like the way this mole business was turning out at all. He had been so sure that Artemis had been the mole, the way she swooped in just a little too quickly after he called it quits with Ollie, and then had all that suspicious behaviour with Cheshire and Sportsmaster, her lying about being Ollie’s niece. All the loose ends would have tied up so neatly. It would have made complete sense for her to be the mole.
Except now he was pretty sure she wasn’t.
She was good in the field, but that didn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t the mole. In fact, if anything, being good in the field should just be more evidence that she was the mole, since she clearly has a lot of training, way more training than Ollie could have given her without Roy noticing. It wouldn’t have been possible.
And she seemed pretty desperate to get the team to like her, too. Wally didn’t, but most of the team did. Wally was only like that because she stole Roy’s place, anyway. Roy was thankful for that. He didn’t show it, it was hard for him to outright day things like that, but he hoped Wally knew how grateful he was for him standing up for Speedy’s place on the team, even if he didn’t want it. He hoped Wally knew he was thankful for friends like him and Dick.
Then again, Roy wasn’t sure why he didn’t want to be on the team. He could get more work done, he could possibly catch the eye of important Justice League members, and he could hang out with Wally, Dick and Kaldur. It was actually a pretty sweet deal.
But when he thought about joining, his head hurt and his gut ached and his entire body set on fire with this burning rage. It was like this deep, powerful hate inside him was ignited every time he thought about the team and what they stood for. The League thought they were babies! How dare they try and put him in a playpen with the sidekicks, when he was League material! How dare they think he was some useless sidekick!
He didn’t mean to get so angry about it. He wasn’t even sure why, but just thinking about not getting into the Justice League made him so angry, made him feel like he just.. Wasn’t fulfilling his destiny, which was cliche as hell, but he couldn’t explain it any other way. Every time he did something that didn’t revolve around trying to get into the JLA, it just felt like he wasn’t doing what he should be. Like he was wasting himself.
Right now he had a mole to catch. Sure, Artemis had gained his trust (even if he was still a little apprehensive of her. He wasn’t letting his guard down, at the very least.) but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t still someone on that team feeding info to the other side.
The only problem now was the one problem that Roy didn’t want to face, and also the main reason he had so badly hoped that Artemis was the mole. A reason he wasn’t quite ready to face yet. The reason he actually wanted to join the team, despite the strong sense of nausea he got when he accepted anything less that Justice League membership.
He needed it to be Artemis because he couldn’t trust her. If he can trust her, then…
Then he trusts everyone on the team. He trusts all of them. None of them could be the mole.
It gave Roy a headache. He needed to catch this mole. Maybe it could get him into the Justice League. But who could the mole even be? He trusted them all. The only person that he hadn’t done a thorough check of was himself, and he obviously wasn’t the mole.
There couldn’t be a mole. Could there? No way. There was no mole on the team.